


If You Have A Hammer

by helens78



Category: Wilby Wonderful (2004)
Genre: Community: kink_bingo, Domestic, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Romance, domestic/tradesman kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-17
Updated: 2010-06-17
Packaged: 2017-10-10 04:09:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/95324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helens78/pseuds/helens78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It might just be time to start building a life again.  Fortunately, Dan knows a very good handyman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Have A Hammer

**Author's Note:**

> This was for the "domestic/tradesman kink" on my 2010 Kink Bingo card; Duck seemed like a natural fit. This turned out much sweeter than I expected, but I'm still pleased with it. :)

After Dan reopens the video store, he takes a good hard look around. Before, he was just thinking about what it'd take to function; now he's wondering about expansion, about what it'd take to make the business last.

He comes over to Duck's for dinner and fails to make himself useful with the food; Duck just puts him at the kitchen table with a nice cold root beer while he heats up some hamburgers. This doesn't really seem like a fair division of labor--Dan could heat up burgers and chop onions and pickles if Duck would let him.

"I don't mind helping," Dan says.

Duck just grins down at the skillet. "I'm halfway to making you a kept man. You let me do my thing."

Dan smiles despite himself, then looks down at the kitchen table, at his root beer. He picks at the label. "The thing is, I was going to ask you for a favor."

"Name it."

"It's not a small favor."

Duck's eyebrows go up for a second, and when he looks over at Dan, he's grinning so hard Dan doesn't have to guess what he's thinking about. "Now we're talking."

"It's not about sex."

Duck just laughs. "That's okay. What do you need help with?"

"The store. I mean, if you're not busy, if you have some time--I could use some shelves."

"I can do that." Duck slides the burgers onto buns and glances at the condiments. "What do you like on yours?"

"Oh, at least let me do that for myself," Dan says, standing up and catching Duck's hand. Duck turns around and winds up in Dan's arms, and Dan laughs in spite of himself. "Kept man?"

"Worse things."

"A lot worse," Dan says, "like hamburgers getting cold," and he puts a few onions and pickles on his burger. Duck's still chuckling as they settle down at the table. He steals a swig of Dan's root beer, but Dan doesn't mind.

* * *

A couple weeks pass, and while Dan doesn't want to nag, he's keeping an eye on Duck's schedule and wondering about those shelves. On a slow Tuesday afternoon, though, there's the unmistakable roar of Duck's truck out front, and Duck walks in dressed in an old pair of overalls and a paint-stained t-shirt with the sleeves cut out. Work clothes.

"Is this business or pleasure?" Dan asks.

"Both, you play your cards right," Duck tells him. He pulls a tape measure out of his pocket. "Mind if I look around, take a few measurements?"

"Measure anything you want," Dan says. Duck stares at him for a minute, tongue poking out between his lips, but Dan's the one who laughs first. "You want me to put the 'closed' sign out for a few minutes?"

"Wouldn't say no."

"Me neither," Dan agrees, and he pulls all the shades and flips the sign over to 'closed'. As it turns out, Duck doesn't need a whole lot of measurements for this: the two of them fit together just fine without them.

* * *

The shelves _do_ need measurements, but Duck does all the work for them at home, which means Dan's there a lot, watching Duck cut wood and sand it and hammer things together. Even so, Duck doesn't let Dan help out, not even with the painting.

"Come on," Dan says, not for the first time. He knows he's starting to sound kind of whiny, but he can't help it. "They're my shelves, right?"

"Not just yet."

So Dan takes a seat on the workshop floor--out of the way, so Duck doesn't have to worry about running into him when he's sanding or nailing or anything--and watches Duck work. It's not like it was back at the beginning; back then, Dan just sat there watching Duck and trying to look like he wasn't. The video store needed some windows fixed, window frames repainted, the front door re-set since the locks didn't quite fit right. Duck was the go-to guy on Wilby for all those things, so for the first few weeks after Dan signed the lease on the place, he was there while Duck fixed stuff, and he spent a lot of time looking away.

Now he doesn't have to look away. He doesn't have a pitch-and-roll in his stomach like he used to get after nights on the Watch, when Duck would come to the video store and act like nothing happened. He doesn't have to worry about getting so distracted by Duck's grip on his hammer that somebody's bound to notice--anybody who stops by here nowadays isn't going to be surprised that Dan gets a little distracted by his boyfriend.

Duck's still got that same grip when it comes to his hammer. Fingers curled into a fist, knuckles pale, forearm straight and steady, muscles flexing. It's still distracting, because he still looks at Duck's wrist and forearm going tight and thinks about how Duck's arm and hand look when they're on _him_. But it's okay now; it's okay to look, okay to be distracted.

"Thinking about something?" Duck asks. He puts down his hammer and pulls a rag out of his pocket, wipes his hands off with it.

"You first."

Duck smiles. "Just thinking about when I first did some work for you."

"Yeah? That's funny; me, too. What were you thinking about?"

"That you didn't ask for a lot. Place could've used a new roof, some paint. Maybe rip out that whole front door, put in a new one." Duck pauses. "How about you?"

Dan clears his throat and looks down at the floor. "I was thinking about how it used to turn me on when you hammered stuff."

"Hope it still turns you on when I hammer stuff. Or nail stuff."

When Dan looks up again, Duck's smiling at him. He puts the rag back in his pocket and gets to his feet, and he offers Dan a hand up, too.

"I'd build you a house if you needed one," Duck says. "Shelves don't seem like much."

Dan smiles; he looks down at their hands, still clasped together. "There's always a new roof. Some paint. A new front door."

"You don't need a house?"

"I like yours."

When Duck kisses him, he smells a little like sawdust and tastes a little like sweat. Dan puts his hands on Duck's shoulders and eases back.

"Come to bed?" he asks. "You hammered a lot of stuff today."

"Oh, it _does_ still turn you on."

Dan kind of wants to make a dirty joke--something like _well, yeah, Duck--when all you have is a hammer, all I want is to get nailed_\--but instead he just grins and leads Duck inside. He'll get the hang of dirty jokes someday; no hurry.

_-end-_


End file.
